New Visa Rules Hurt Foreigners, Britons Alike

On behalf of foreign graduates in the UK: We come in peace.

Those of us who have survived the British university system have no designs on torpedoing your economy or corrupting your culture. We are not here to sponge off your welfare system or claim asylum. Immigration Minister Damian Green seems thrilled to take tuition dollars from the world’s “best and brightest,” but come the end of our courses, we’re booted out ignominiously. Shouldn’t the UK want intelligent, hard-working students to stay?

Some of us came to the UK with the goal of going home after our courses. Some of us, however, wanted to give working abroad a go. But Her Majesty’s Government has made it impossible with recent changes to the UK post-study work visa scheme.